Tennessee's football ticket sales have steadily declined in recent years

The Univ. of Tennessee has signed a deal with IMG College Ticket Solutions "after years of seeing a steady decline in its football ticket sales," according to Sam Mamudi of MARKETWATCH. UT became the third D-I school in May to sign with IMG College Ticket Solutions, a "unit of the burgeoning IMG College division." UT Senior Associate AD for External Operations Chris Fuller said that "secondary market websites, together with better televisions and viewing technology, a poor economy and ever-growing distractions for fans -- especially students -- had made ticket sales more challenging." Fuller said several years ago, the football team saw "hard sell-outs" for five of its seven games at the 102,455-seat Neyland Stadium. But he noted that last season, "just three games were hard sell-outs, and season ticket numbers" are at 67,000, short of the 72,500 available. In addition, UT's 21,678-seat Thompson-Boling Arena is "one of the country’s largest basketball arenas." As part of the new arrangement, IMG "will bring in a general manager and build a staff of eight to 12 sales people by mid-June, all of whom will be focused full-time on selling tickets and providing customer care to ticket holders." Currently, UT "has seven people in its ticket office whose role is largely taking and processing ticket orders" (MARKETWATCH.com, 5/31).